


the violence in your heart

by Lizzen



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, POV Alternating, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 07:19:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14279829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizzen/pseuds/Lizzen
Summary: After Crait, a certain darkness haunts them both.





	the violence in your heart

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the Two Halves of Reylo Weekly Challenge of “First Blood”, and updated for a slightly longer AO3 posting

**I**  
Under falling snow, her rage and her strength unite. She slices him from chest to forehead with the saber; a burn that he’ll carry as a jagged scar for the rest of his life. Something he can’t hide or forget.

She’s marked him as her enemy; she’s marked him as her own.

 

 

 **II**  
The first time he hears of her, she’s a shadow; powerful with a certain cleverness to get close to that which he needs. He worries about this _girl_ , this ghost who could endanger everything he’s worked on his entire life.

*  
“You’re not alone,” he says quietly, and his heart shifts.

*  
Standing with her against the throne proves to have an unexpected consequence.

Kylo remembers the shriek that rose out of her at first blood; the praetorian’s blade leaving more than a scratch on her shoulder. It echoes inside of him; the raw sound of her in the air. Crying out in pain.

And the further from Crait he gets, his dreams take it several steps darker.

In the depths of his mind’s eye, the praetorians do more than rip up her shoulder, but slice at her until she bleeds steadily. Leave her lying on the floor to die as they turn to attack him. _I’ll help you_ , she had whispered to him, and here he is, unable to help her. Unable to stand up for her. Soldier after soldier meets his weapon for a final end, but he can’t clear them in time to get to her. Hold her and tell her she’ll be fine. He can get help, he can save her. Ensure that she’ll live to confound him another day. And every dream ends with her blood on his hands and her eyes wide open but lifeless.

He wakes shivering, aching for her before his longing turns sour. Before he remembers how she abandoned him. There’s the facade of hate that touches him then, threatens to consume, threatens to linger.

Still, he thinks, and perhaps traitorously: the galaxy is much more interesting with her in it.

 

 

 **III**  
The first time she sees him, he’s the bogeyman; a faceless monster with an inelegant weapon of destruction. She fears him utterly, more terrifying than anything she’s witnessed.

*  
“--Neither are you,” she says quietly, and her heart shifts.

*  
A med tech checks on her wound daily, applies the smallest ration of salve on it and bandages it with linens washed in the ‘fresher the night before. It’s more care than she’s received in years, having managed her various scrapes and cuts on Jakku herself.

She remembers receiving the cut, and being slammed through the Force with the disarming barrage of his feeling. He must have seen it, and been angry, perhaps scared. It was dark what she felt; felt him aching for her in the middle of battle. Something warm had filled her up then, the knowledge that she wasn’t alone in the room. That Ben was hers.

If only for a brief and beautiful moment.

Rey winces, not from the pain in her arm but the cracks in her heart. A needling feeling that when she faces him again -- a crushing inevitability -- she will have to do what is right. Her blood races hot and fast in her veins thinking of it, thinking of ending his life and saving the galaxy as a result.

Still, hope eats away at her, tempting her with alternate futures.

 

 

 **IV**  
His dreams shift when spies tell him of her location, of her pursuits and habits. Of her schedule. He can arrive at his leisure; trap her, kill her. There’s a promise still ringing in the air around him; a promise he made to destroy her.

His dreams shift from the praetorians slicing her up, offering pools of her blood to a burning room and a lifeless leader, to him bearing the blade. She never asks for mercy, never begs him to stop, _if you loved me, you’d stop_ ; she matches him in battle until she can’t anymore. Until his blade meets her heart.

He wakes sweating and gasping and horrified and clutching at his chest. Sometimes screaming in a fit of agony. _Never_ , he swears.

 

 

**V**

“You betrayed me,” she spits, her saber against a man’s throat. “I want to know everything you told them. Everything.”

“Mercy,” the man says and then shudders when she advances closer to him, her body flush against his.

“I’m not interested in mercy,” she breathes. “I’m interested if the Supreme Leader knows where I am.”

He breathes in slowly, and they breathe as one for a moment. “He does,” he says quietly.

Her mouth nears his. “ _Good_.”

 

 

 **VI**  
In the silence and solace of his room, he stares at himself in the mirror and his gaze traces his scars, those before he knew the girl and after. He lingers along the jagged scar he can’t hide, can’t forget. His fingers press against it. And he remembers what it was like to be schooled, to be hunted in a forest by someone stronger than himself.

And he wonders what damage she would do to him now, after all that has happened.

 

 

 **VII**  
“I don’t want to fight you,” he says, his saber silent at his side. She is wide open to the Force and can hear his heartbeat, an unsteady thing.

“Funny that,” she says, and silences her own saber. Walks close enough to be dangerous, close enough to strike him suddenly or be struck down herself. “Do you yield?” she says evenly, a darkness in her demanding his submission.

She sees him flinch at the word, but she can sense his willingness to listen, to negotiate. “Peace is a tricky thing, Rey.”

“Not if you stand with me, Ben,” she replies, just loud enough that he can hear her.

That’s when she sees him tremble, that’s when she knows she’s won.

*  
The day he offers himself up is the day his sleep become a dreamless quiet.

 

 

 **VIII**  
“You need a teacher!” His eyes are filling with light and the curves of her face. She’s terrified of him, and she’s terrified of what she’s becoming. “I can show you the ways of the Force,” he says. And then, it all changes.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thanks to th_esaurus <3


End file.
